NYT Christmas editorial; Emerson and happiness

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NYT Editorial Offends Christians

Bruce Tomaso, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, tells us about The New York Times Christmas Day editorial that fails to mention Jesus. Instead, it focuses on de-emphasizing consumerism and reducing the carbon footprint of the holiday. Predictably, knee-jerk conservatives criticized the editorial. Reader "joe bailey hyden" called it an "absurdity" and says "the ny times is the epitome of sophisticated religious bigotry against observant christians."

The reaction to the NYT editorial is evidence of a shift in conservative Christian attitudes regarding Christmas. The editorial calls on Americans to leave the material Christmas behind. In years gone by, you might think conservative Christians would cheer the development. In the past, they had a two-step program for restoring the religious holiday. First, de-emphasize the commercial nature of Christmas, the advertising, the shopping, the gift-buying. Second, put Christ back in Christmas.

Lately, however, conservatives have dropped their opposition to consumerism. They don't object to department stores' lavish displays and extended hours and sales, sales, sales. What they object to is sales clerks wishing shoppers "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." Conservative Christians want to tighten the link between consumerism and Christmas.

So, the NYT committed two sins. First, they criticized consumerism. Second, they didn't pay proper respect to the reason for the consumerism, Jesus Christ. Irony abounds in this season of joy.

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The Source of Happiness

The day after Christmas, Bruce Tomaso chose for the quote of the day on The Dallas Morning News Religion blog this wisdom from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself."

Reader "Dale," the Bible-quoting, self-identified true Christian, dismisses Emerson with, "Emerson would have fit in well with today's modern society. Its all about me and my happiness".

Reader "Asinus Gravis" finds the reaction ironic.

"Even more odd, not to say self-contradictory, is to be lectured about avoiding thinking 'its all about me' by someone who stresses how supremely important it is that I should seek and secure MY OWN salvation while I have the chance in this life, so I can avoid receiving MY just punishment in the hereafter."

Jesus is usually thought of as stressing selflessness, giving up one's worldly goods, putting the last first, doing unto the least of one's brethren. Yet, the followers of Jesus have somehow subverted this message into putting foremost and almost exclusively the notion that securing one's own eternal salvation is what it's all about. Doing good works won't do it. Having a large carbon footprint won't deny it. In fact, conservative Christians imply that you can have it all, material possessions and eternal salvation, too. Saying "Merry Christmas" with Jesus in your heart is all it takes.

Somehow, I believe that Jesus and Emerson would both suggest that material possessions are not only insufficient for salvation or happiness, but the pursuit of material possessions is a distraction, a barrier, to what brings true fulfillment. It's Christians like "Dale" who have lost the true message of Jesus and fail to understand Emerson at all.

Obama and Rick Warren

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All Hands on Deck for Inaugural

William McKenzie, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, chooses as the topic of the day the controversy over Barack Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation prayer at the Inauguration. Warren is controversial because of his stand against gay marriage, especially his support for California's Proposition 8. McKenzie thinks the choice was a masterstroke by Obama, reaching out to a leader of a group, evangelical Christians, that voted against him in the election.

Look. The economy is in crisis. We're fighting two wars. Nuclear proliferation is accelerating. And, if that's not enough, the planet is in peril environmentally. Gay rights is important, but it's not the country's, nor Obama's, priority one, or two, or three, or even four. Obama's choice of Rick Warren signals that Obama wants all hands on deck for these priorities, no matter what side they take on the gay rights issue.

Farmers Branch

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Farmers Branch is a Warning to Texas

William McKenzie, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, notices that Farmers Branch is becoming poorer, elderly, and ironically, Hispanic. Farmers Branch, in an attempt to arrest civic decline, passed some of the most anti-immigrant measures in the country recently. What the good citizens don't realize is that their efforts are counter-productive.

McKenzie gazes into his crystal ball for a glimpse of Texas Future, telling us it looks a lot like Texas Past, way past. He says that demographically, the future Texas is going to look more like the Texas of 1824 than the Texas of 1954. That is, it will be a majority Latino state, due to birth rates alone, even if immigration were shut down entirely, which is unlikely. Aging Baby Boomers will make Texas more elderly. Hispanics and the elderly are both lower income demographics, making Texas Future poorer as well.

Doctor McKenzie's prescription for Texas is different than the doomed approach taken by Farmers Branch. Instead of trying to hold back the demographic tide, McKenzie recognizes that "the way to prosper [is] to link the Anglo and Mexican societies." Redouble efforts to improve education and health care. Increase outreach efforts to involve Spanish-speaking parents and students into our schools and communities. Address the problem of financing Medicaid before it soaks up the state budget. In other words, deal with the changing demographics, don't deny the change or futilely try to reverse the change. The doctor is offering good advice. The chances the patient will listen are doubtful.

Dallas smoking ban; Oil prices

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Right Against Right

There have been lots of letters to the editor of The Dallas Morning News regarding the recent decision by the city of Dallas to ban smoking in bars and pool halls. The most agitated writers are the smokers. A typical sentiment: "If you don't like the smoke in an establishment THEN DON'T GO IN!!!!!!"

One could as easily say, "If you want to smoke, THEN DON'T GO IN!!!!!!" In the end, it comes down to the fact that the right to smoke clashes with the right to breathe clean air. The right of proprietors to establish the rules on their property clashes with the right of workers to a safe and healthy workplace. As Lord Peel famously said in a much different context, this is a case of right against right. Such cases are particularly difficult to resolve peacefully. Personally, I just hope that in this case, the peace is broken only by ANGRY SMOKERS USING ALL CAPS IN THEIR INTERNET BLOG POSTINGS.

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Trey Garrison's Own Black-and-White Vision

Trey Garrison's Thursday Roundup focuses on red-light cameras (Garrison tells us they are bad), on how to stop home invasions (does Trey Garrison even need to say?), and on the falling price of oil (Garrison tells us some good things about falling oil prices - d'oh).

So far, so familiar. Ho hum. Another chapter of the Libertarian gospel according to Trey. Still, Garrison manages to say something deserving of recognition. My nominee for today's award for unintended irony: "A good tell that a news agency has little understanding of the basics of business and economics is in how they cast business stories in single-perspective black-and-white, focusing on a single negative."

This from Trey Garrison, who has made a career of doing black-and-white. Nuance? Not at all.

Madoff and Ponzi schemes

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Why Social Security Is Not A Ponzi Scheme

Last Friday, Jim Mitchell blogged about the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. Today, Nicole Stockdale blogged on the same subject. In both cases, readers quickly responded, asking how Social Security differs from Madoff's illegal Ponzi scheme.

The readers' questions really weren't intended to solicit answers as much as they were intended as indictments of Social Security, but here goes anyway. Social Security is not a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi schemes have an unsustainable progression driving their growth. This caused the original Ponzi scheme to collapse in 200 days. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system that has been operating for over 70 years, and with future adjustments to account for demographically-driven variability (e.g., the Baby Boom, enhanced life expectancy), Social Security can theoretically go on forever. It's the resistance to these periodic, necessary adjustments that threatens Social Security's viability, not its nature as a pay-as-you-go system.

Terrorism in Mexico; Lottery

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Mexico Is Not the Holy Land

Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, draws a contrast between the millions of dollars and years of effort the US government spent prosecuting the Holy Land case here in Dallas and the largely tolerated drug violence happening on our US/Mexican border. He says the Holy Land defendants were accused of funding terrorism in the Palestinian territories whereas the drug cartels are carrying out worse terrorist activities right in our own backyard. Robberson asks why the government shouldn't treat drug violence the same as any other terrorism prosecution.

Before answering his question, let me say that I think the drug violence along our border is a serious problem that ought to be receiving more attention and resources than it has.

But the difference in the two cases, and why Middle East terrorism is treated more seriously, is that Middle East terrorism is an existential threat to America. Only lack of means, not lack of desire, keeps al Qaeda from using weapons of mass destruction in America - nuclear, chemical or biological. The drug traffickers, on the other hand, are driven by the profit motive. As unacceptable as extortion, rape and murder are, they are not existential threats to America as a whole. Killing their market would be counter-productive to drug traffickers. That's no comfort to their victims, but it is a cold fact of life that those responsible for our national security need to factor into their prioritization of our planning and response to terrorist activities.

By the way, if The Dallas Morning News is serious about calling more attention to the dangers posed by drug trafficking, how about naming the drug trafficker this year's Texan of the Year? ;-)

Perhaps a better parallel between drug trafficking and terrorism is what's happening, not in Palestine with Hamas, but in Afghanistan. 90% of the world's opium is produced in Afghanistan. Much of the violence in that country is no longer about religion. It's about money. It's not the Taliban. It's age-old tribal rivalries for control of territory and the opium business. That the US is doing so poorly controlling drug trafficking on our southern border is a very bad omen about our prospects of successfully fighting terrorism half a world away in the border mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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Jacquielynn Floyd's Irrational Lottery Advice

Jacquielynn Floyd, in The Dallas Morning News Metro blog, offers this bit of irrational lottery advice.

"I don't buy lottery tickets either, but I was tempted last week - the Lewisville convenience store that sold a $13 million winner the other day is about half-a-mile from my house. The impulse was to run over there and buy a fistful of tickets, quick. Then came the sobering thought that if the odds of hitting are remote, the odds of the same Finamart selling two big winners in a row are pretty much nonexistent."

Luckily for her, she's paid for her language skills, not her math skills. Now that that Finamart has hit it big once, the odds of it hitting it big for a second time in a row are exactly the same as every other Finamart's odds of hitting it big in the next drawing. So, go ahead and buy your ticket at that Finamart. Sure, you are most likely throwing your money away, but so would you be if you used that dollar to buy the kind of advice you get from Jacquielynn Floyd in The Dallas Morning News.

Nigerian violence

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Clashes Between Muslims and Christians

Nigeria's population is about equally divided between Muslim and Christian, with Muslims dominating the north and Christians the south. The city of Jos is located in between and recently saw violent clashes between the two communities that left 500 dead. Time magazine's coverage of the violence reports:

"In every household, church and mosque, people blamed followers of the other religion with planning and executing the attacks with a vitriol that does not bode well for the future of the city or the region."

Tom McGregor, in Dallas Blog, confirms the vicious violence on both sides, saying that 400 of the dead were Muslim and 100 were Christian. Yet how does Dallas Blog headline this tragedy? "Nigerian Muslims Destroy Christian Churches."

I guess a conservative Christian blog in Dallas, Texas, is not going to have much influence on what happens in Nigeria. Thank God, because the bias and slant of the coverage would only exacerbate the religious divisions behind the tragedies. Dallas Blog's influence on attitudes of conservative Christians in Texas is another matter.

Auto bailout

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GOP to Detroit: Drop Dead

Lots and lots of chatter about the failure of the auto bailout in the Senate yesterday. Michael Landauer, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, blames the unions. "Thanks, UAW, for today's stock market" he titles his blog post. He continues to pedal the story that the UAW refuses to compromise and accept lower wages and benefits. According to calculations by Time, next year workers at Ford plants will earn an average of $53 an hour with benefits, close to the $49 an hour that workers at foreign-owned car manufacturers in the US average and far below the old UAW wage of $71 with benefits. Reportedly, the UAW agreed to reach parity in the next union contract in 2011. The GOP wants cuts immediately. Expect Landauer and the union-busters to continue to push the line that the union is the obstinate barrier to the success of the US car makers.

Wayne Slater, in The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog, shows us the politics behind the union-busting strategy. He tells us that Gov. Rick Perry of Texas says the collapse of the US automakers will be good news for Texas and other right-to-work states. He refuses to compromise until those "onerous union contracts" are broken. He also is keeping a close eye on Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is expected to challenge him for the governorship in 2010. He has already criticized her for voting for the $700 billion Wall Street bailout. He would like nothing more than to hang her for saving Detroit, too.

Back on the Opinion blog, Jim Mitchell points out another drama unfolding at GMAC, the financing arm of GM. Unless GMAC can restructure its debt, it might default, taking down much of GM's car dealer network even if GM itself limps along. Reader Chuck Bloom points out something most hardliners ignore as they cheer for the Big Three automakers to fall into bankruptcy. Because of the banking crisis, there is likely no "bank/lending institution to serve as a guarantor of debts in Chapter 11 for General Motors. Without it, reorganization cannot happen. Then it's Chapter 7 - liquidation and bye, bye hundreds of thousands of jobs." It's been reported that no less than Vice President Dick Cheney, no union-loving liberal socialist, told Senate Republicans behind closed doors that unless there's a bailout of the auto industry, it's "Herbert Hoover time." The GOP Senators apparently did not see that as something to be avoided.

President Bush did his best to drive a hard bargain with Democrats in Congress, but he failed to bring Republicans on board. But Bush realizes that failure is not an option. An uncontrolled bankruptcy of the auto industry while the economy is as weak as now would be disastrous for the national interest. Ironically, screwing Detroit won't do Republicans any good politically, either. It further shrinks their already dwindling base. Writing off Michigan and Ohio in order to rally the right-to-work Southerners might help Rick Perry keep his governor's job in Texas, but it's no way for the party to regain power nationally.

Steve Blow; Madonna; Nature of science

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Self Parody

I admit I didn't get past the headline. Steve Blow columns have a way of doing that. He descends further into self parody with a The Dallas Morning News column today titled, "Lost Dog's Tale Has A Happy Ending."

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Madonna Not Welcome by Church in Chile

In another story where the headline says all you need to know, Bruce Tomaso tells us on the The Dallas Morning News Religion blog that "Catholic cardinal says Madonna provokes 'lustful thoughts'".

Busted. Madonna should quit trying to be subtle about it. The cardinal is on to her.

I suppose it would be out of line for me to suggest that the cardinal's musical tastes probably lean to boy bands. OK, so I won't.

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Science in a Nutshell

The Dallas Morning News Religion blog has a habit of posting a daily quote first thing in the morning. I've always suspected it's the lazy journalist's means to pushing copy without having to, you know, write anything. But sometimes you get get pure gems, like today.

"We know life only by its symptoms."

Albert Szent-Györgyi (1893 - 1986), the Hungarian physiologist and Nobel Prize winner who discovered Vitamin C

Only seven words, but they capture in a nutshell the nature of science (and science of nature). Science focuses on behavior, reactions, responses. In other words, the symptoms. "What happens to this if I do that?" is a scientific question. Science can't answer "Why do we exist?" It does't even have a good answer to the seemingly simple question "What is life?" But it's very good at describing the aggregate of responses that living organisms have to external stimuli. What it all means is left to philosophy or religion.

Bush's new house

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Setting the Record Straight about Preston Hollow

Sometimes, you come across a story backwards, from the comments about it first. Sometimes, you have a hard time recognizing the story when you finally get to it. That's the case in today's news.

James Ragland, in The Dallas Morning News, sets the record straight about the Preston Hollow neighborhood that George and Laura Bush will soon call home. Tim Rogers, in Frontburner, links to it and says he's still trying to figure out the point. Rogers and Frontburner readers who already know all about Preston Hollow don't see what's newsworthy about telling other readers that Preston Hollow is rich, exclusive, and has a history of segregation and ethnic discrimination (like many other areas). Several say they can't figure out his point, either. One says he's got his "finger up his butt." One calls the column "incoherent" and denies Ragland knows anything about "the city."

All that whets this reader's appetite to read the original column and see what all the fuss is about. But when I do, I see it's pretty much as Ragland himself describes it. He's correcting some mischaracterizations originating in national media. No more. No less. In the end, the whole affair reinforces Frontburner's self-description as a "snarky celebration of ignorance." Only there's not much to celebrate today. The most telling reader comment was the question, "What’s going to happen to this blog when you don’t have DMN to link to?" What, indeed?

Bailout money; DMN finances

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How Much Bailout Money Can Dallas Get?

Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, asks, "as long as the federal government is talking about handing out money, why shouldn't Dallas put in a pitch for some financial aid?" Mayor Tom Leppert would like some money for the Calatrava bridges and for the Convention Center hotel. Robberson himself would like some money for Fair Park and for job creation in southern Dallas. But Robberson also asks if "it's appropriate for our city (or any other) to be asking for additional federal help at this time, whether it provides an economic stimulus or not?"

That's a loaded question. It implies that the bridges and hotel and Fair Park won't provide an economic stimulus. Or it implies that Dallas is doing so well economically that it can't benefit from additional stimulus. Or it implies that there will be cities who will have a hand out who won't need the federal money or who won't use it productively if they get it.

Barack Obama's plan is to make "$25 billion immediately available in a Jobs and Growth Fund to help ensure that in-progress and fast-tracked infrastructure projects are not sidelined, and to ensure that schools can meet their energy costs and undertake key repairs starting this fall."

The key part of this plan is its focus on "in-progress and fast-tracked" infrastructure projects, not pie-in-the-sky wish-list items that have no chance of securing popular support for the necessary funding even in flush times. The immediate need is not to think up new and wonderful ways to spend money, but to ensure that already approved projects don't get delayed or cancelled because of tough economic times. In Dallas, the bridges and hotel seem to meet the criteria. Projects that don't meet the criteria include some undefined Fair Park or southern Dallas redevelopment project.

Some readers complain that the federal government has no place funding any of these projects. Economic development in cities is not the federal government's responsibility. Fair enough. But the federal government has monetary powers local government doesn't. Left to the cities and states, budgetary pressures would lead to a downward spiral of economic collapse. The federal government can and should use its powers to arrest that vicious cycle. Focus on the right projects. Keep the dirt flying. Keep the workers on the job. Hire more. Turn this economy around.

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Closing the DMN as a Loss-Avoidance Strategy

Recently, Wick Allison had a look at A.H. Belo's financials and speculated that the publisher of The Dallas Morning News is running out of cash. Today, Frontburner's Tim Rogers reinforces that conclusion with a story from no less than The Wall Street Journal:

"Fitch analyst Mike Simonton said more worrisome than the number of newspaper publishers in default is the fact that some, including A.H. Belo Corp. and Sun-Times Media Group, are unprofitable on a cash-flow basis, and aren’t in a position to service debt.

'That should raise red flags,' Mr. Simonton said, adding that newspapers can no longer offset revenue declines with cost cuts. 'Closing some of them down as a loss-avoidance strategy may make more sense.'"

Rogers concludes: "So what will Dallas look like without the Dallas Morning News? It now seems a fair question."

To me, Dallas will look a little more dark, sound a little more quiet, feel a little more lonely. Not that I'll miss the print edition. I gave that up months ago in frustration of seeing yet another writer let go or section cut or reduced. But I still rely on the online version of the News, mainly for its blogs. All the breaking news gets published in the blogs first, and the commentary explaining what's behind the news gets published there only. Frontburner, Unfair Park, and Pegasus News just don't have the breadth and depth that The Dallas Morning News still commands, even after all the cutting and trimming.

Science study on dogs

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Dogs Have a Sense of Fairness

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, reports what he calls a 'duh' science study. Experiments with dogs indicate that if master doesn't reward all dogs equally for doing tricks, then the dog that is treated unfairly is less likely to repeat the same trick. Weiss says this is obvious to anyone who owns more than one dog. Weiss still tells the story because he finds it interesting that "fair play seems hardwired into the brains of critters down the evolutionary chain from us."

We shouldn't mock studies that confirm conventional wisdom. Lots of common knowledge turns out to be false when looked at in a rigorous manner. Lots of common knowledge is confirmed. We don't know for sure which is which until we do the study.

One reason to test hypotheses we think we already know the answers to is to create the foundation for further studies. Rigorously understanding fair play in dogs might lead to better understanding of fair play in humans. Dogs can be made subjects of experiments that ethics would prevent running on humans.

That a sense of fair play is "hardwired" into the brains of dogs probably tells us something about ourselves. Will we discover that a sense of fair play is "hardwired" into human brains as well, whether from genes or from training? Don't be at all surprised to learn that if there's an evolutionary advantage for having a sense of fair play, that natural selection will select for it. That's hardwiring.

Dogs aren't "down the evolutionary chain from us." Dogs are just as highly evolved as humans are. Antelope are just as highly evolved as lions. Where one stands on the food chain does not imply anything about the inferiority or superiority of one's genes. All living things on Earth have about the same 4 billion years of evolution behind them, tailoring their genetic makeup for survival in their own environmental niches. It's been said that cockroaches have been around since the age of dinosaurs and will be around long after humans have destroyed themselves in nuclear or environmental disaster. If you're going to bestow rank in the "evolutionary chain", cockroaches would be at the head of the honor roll. Just in case you were feeling a little superior.

P.S. Coincidentally, another story was in the news today, headlined, "Homeless dog tries to save dog hit by car in Chile."

Cynthia Dunbar; Planned Parenthood; Hutchison for Governor

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Throwing Our Children Into the Enemy's Flames

In Cynthia Dunbar, the state of Texas has a witch-burning, rack-stretching seventeenth-century religious extremist sitting on its State Board of Education. Unfair Park reports that Dunbar has just published a book, "One Nation Under God: How the Left is Trying to Erase What Made Us Great." According to the Texas Freedom Network, in the book Dunbar calls public education a "tool of perversion." She says we are throwing our children "into the enemy's flames." She claims public schools are unconstitutional and a violation of Scripture. She wants to require any person desiring to govern to have a sincere appreciation for the Word of God.

Yikes!

Texas voters elected Dunbar to the State Board of Education. Charitably, let's hope that Texas voters didn't know what they were getting when they elected her in 2006. It's only a hope and maybe Texas voters are as extreme as Dunbar, but it's too depressing not to hold out hope. So, let's assume that she got elected because of voter apathy and ignorance. That a small percentage of dedicated religious extremists carried the day while most voters didn't know the State Board of Education or Cynthia Dunbar from Adam's off ox. Well, Cynthia Dunbar is making a name for herself now. Will it be enough to get her and her anti-American ideas tossed out in the next election in 2010? Let's hope so, for our children's sake.

P.S. Thanks to the Texas Freedom Network for their continuing effort to bring such travesties to the public's attention.

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Give the Gift of Health for Christmas

Both the The Dallas Morning News Religion blog and the Opinion blog covered the story of Planned Parenthood of Indiana offering gift certificates for the holidays. Bruce Tomaso of the Religion blog posted the reaction of conservative agitator Michael Medved, but to Tomaso's credit, he later posted a second blog item with reader responses pointing out that Planned Parenthood offers physicals and other health services. That gift certificate could turn out to be the most valuable gift under the Christmas tree for some lucky recipient who has put off that checkup for far too long.

Michael Landauer, in the Opinion blog, showed his own attitude towards Planned Parenthood by calling the gift certificates "a deliberate and provocative attack on Christians." Newsflash to Landauer: it's not always about you. I Googled "health clinic gift certificates" and found numerous other examples of health clinics featuring gift certificates, including one that offered the sound advice that "good health is the greatest gift."

Paraphrasing a reader on the Religion blog, I offered this gift suggestion to Michael Landauer's friends: make a donation to Planned Parenthood in his name.

Landauer censored my comment, removing it from the blog. I guess I can scratch him off my Christmas list. Was I out of line? OK, I made him the butt of a joke, but what makes it a joke? It's that he's offended by Planned Parenthood and pap smears and pregnancy tests and contraception. Rather than seeing everyday health services as something people ought to be encouraged to utilize, he sees them as something offensive, or worse, sinful. That Landauer is so out of touch with the market Planned Parenthood serves is what is so funny and so sad at the same time. I guess it's the likes of Michael Landauer wielding his censor's pen that keeps me blogging here, beyond the reach of the easily offended.

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Hutchison Is Running For Governor

It looks like Kay Bailey Hutchison's run for governor of Texas in 2010 is all but official. Rick Perry says, "Bring it on." Hutchison may or may not offer much in the way of real policy change. The Texas Republican Party platform has been leaning farther and farther right each time the party meets in state convention. I see Hutchison playing to those extremists to get the nomination rather than leading the charge to bring change to the GOP. But saying goodbye to Rick Perry would be cause for jubilation, so let's just say I remain cautiously optimistic about the coming battle royale in the Texas GOP.

On the other hand, the battle may turn out to be a flop. Wick Allison, in Frontburner, is reporting that GOP sources are telling him that Hutchison is already sewing up the big GOP donors and that Perry will drop out of the race after the upcoming legislative session.

Assuming then it's Kay, what's in store for Texas? Wayne Slater, in The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog, reports that Hutchison says her priorities are:

"low taxes, quality schools and universities, access to health care for our families, communities safe from crime and drugs, protection of private property rights, safe transportation and a government that listens and responds to them."

Having education high on the list is good, but listing low taxes number one conflicts with most of the other priorities. Agreed, throwing money at problems is no guarantee of solving them, but taking money away isn't either. If one or the other has to give, I'd rather the low taxes pledge be sacrificed rather than education or health care or even improved regional public transportation. Hutchison will talk a good game on the campaign trail, but I expect I'll be disappointed with her performance in office.

Anglicans and Mormons

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May I Have a Word? Christian

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, is wearing his wordsmith hat when he wonders if the dissident Fort Worth Episcopalians who left the church in a dispute over gay priests are still properly called Anglicans? Jeffrey Weiss says no, that the term Anglican is reserved for those who follow certain rules and standards and are approved by the Anglican Communication led by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

So far, so good, but then Weiss uses an jarring analogy to make his point. He says, "As the word [Christian] is understood by everyone else, I suggest that Mormons are not Christian."

Whoa. I'm one of "everyone else" and I consider Christian to simply mean "follower of Jesus," and not necessarily a member of any specific organization, or any organization at all, for that matter. By that non-theological definition, Mormons are most definitely Christian.

"Christian" is a descriptive, generic term, not a prescriptive, trademarked brand name. There is no organization that sets universal standards for who can and cannot claim to be Christian, unlike the Anglican Communion or Roman Catholicism.

Now, Mormons might believe a few eyebrow-raising claims about Jesus that other Christians are skeptical about, but Jesus is the same fellow in both cases. Evangelical Christians hold a few eyebrow-raising beliefs themselves. As do Catholics. As do... If Mormons claim to be Christians, I see no reason for Jeffrey Weiss to excommunicate them.

Atheist lawsuit

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God Save Kentucky

Bruce Tomaso, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, reports on a lawsuit in Kentucky brought by atheists who object to language in a state statute that stresses "dependence on Almighty God as being vital to the security of the Commonwealth." Tomaso's take?

"Personally, I'm not sure which is sillier: Passing a law that calls on God to do his part to help with homeland security; or taking up the court's time with a suit that claims the law has nonbelievers tossing and turning all night."

My own take? They are both silly. Passing the law trivializes God. Filing the lawsuit maybe stops the slippery slope from carrying us into more consequential territory of state established religion, but slippery slope arguments are hard to defend.

In any case, I figure if the silly people on both sides of this argument are consumed arguing with each other, they'll leave the rest of us alone. And that's a good thing. So, here's to years of litigation over this silly issue.

A.H. Belo vs Huffington Post

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Another Sign That Newspapers Are Dying

A few days ago, Wick Allison at Frontburner did some back-of-the-envelope calculations and concluded that A.H. Belo, publisher of The Dallas Morning News, was at risk of running out of cash. Today, Tim Rogers highlights the growing difficulties at Dallas' only daily by comparing the company with the Huffington Post. AdvertisingAge says that the online newspaper recently took a $25 million investment at a $100 million valuation, compared to a $35 million market cap for publicly traded Belo. Ouch. Worse, Huffington Post employs 46 people compared to 3,700 employees at Belo. Double ouch. Worse still, the Huffington Post plans to use the cash infusion to branch out into local editions, setting itself up for direct competition with print dinosaurs like The Dallas Morning News. Ouch. Ouch. Ouch. While companies like Belo dithered, reluctant to cannibalize their print product and treating their online product like a sideshow, companies like the Huffington Post are moving in and taking over.

Mumbai terrorism; Backup tapes; BCS

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Muslim Condemnation of Terrorism

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, points out again that, contrary to widespread opinion, Muslims do speak out against terrorism. He publishes in condemnations of the Mumbai terrorist attacks released by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, two networks of Indian-American Muslims, and the Muslim Public Affairs Council. All are welcome responses to this violence. The condemnations show that blaming violence on religion is too simplistic an explanation. All people of goodwill condemn the attacks. Unfortunately, some want to go farther and condemn the terrorists' religion as well. This furthers the divide among people of goodwill in different religions and is counterproductive.

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Computer Tape Drives Still Going Strong

Trey Garrison, on his personal blog, opposes Dallas County's proposal to delete their email backups after 90 days. He ridicules Dallas County's IT department: "They store email records on 'tape.' What is this, 1962? ... Tapes??? Really? WTF?"

Trey Garrison reveals his lack of knowledge of IT (that's Information Technology, Trey). Magnetic tape continues to be a viable medium for computer backup, with over 500,000 tape drives installed worldwide for just Sony's AIT technology alone. Tape is a medium that allows for the cheapest storage of the largest amounts of data. In fact, it's the very existence of cheap, plentiful, tape backup technology that undercuts Dallas County's argument that it needs to delete emails after 90 days because of the high cost of retention. With tapes, the county could keep archives for years.

Even though tape is a great medium for off-site backup storage, it's a poor medium for quick access and searches. For that, hard disk storage is superior. The Dallas Morning News story reports that by next summer Dallas County will get a new email archiving system that will allow for fast and easy keyword searches. Let's just hope they keep emails around long enough for there to be something to search.

After ridiculing Dallas County for what Garrison sees as 1962 technology, on another topic Garrison reveals his own fondness for 1962 technology: paper phone books over online directories. He says it might be because he's "burned out on surfing." It looks like phone books won't die ... at least until Trey Garrison and my grandmother do.

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BCS: Whining About a Broken System

It's the first week of December and that means it's time for the annual whining about the broken system known as the Bowl Championship Series (BCS), the NCAA's method of choosing its national champion for its top division of football. The focus of this year's whining is the decision to rank Oklahoma over Texas, despite Texas' victory over OU in October, giving OU the inside track on reaching the BCS championship game in Miami. Michael Landauer, on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, seems to take the position that any complaints are simply whining with the way things turned out this year. He argues

"There is no fix. There is no perfect system. But allowing two national polls and a complex computer ranking system to break a three-way tie isn't a bad way to go. It sure beats sending a team to the Big 12 championship that is ranked below another."

Landauer is wrong. There are two things wrong with the BCS system. First, and most obvious, is that the system needs to allow more than two teams to play for the national championship in the field. The NCAA itself recognizes this, organizing a playoff for what it calls the Football Championship Division, but not for what it calls the Bowl Championship Series. Any resistance on the part of the NCAA is due only to financial reasons, not competitive reasons.

Second, and less recognized, is that the system allows for human subjectivity. Most people complain about the computer rankings that are used as part of the BCS rankings, but it's the human polls that have to be kicked out of the system. The computer rankings are just objective tie-breaking rules. The NCAA should choose an algorithm and go with it. All teams know going in to the season what the algorithm is and what kind of schedule and record they will need to make the field for the playoffs, after which results on the field will dictate who gets crowned national champion. Allowing humans to decide who is ranked above whom is folly. This year, it's the Oklahoma vs Texas debate that gets most of the attention, but there's an Ohio State vs Boise State decision that the NCAA also must decide. And that one is most likely to be settled, not based on which team is judged the better football team, but which school is most likely to pack the stands with fans and gather the largest television audience. As long as any subjective human criteria are used to determine which teams get into the prestigious BCS bowls and the ultimate national championship game, expect the annual whining to continue, justifiably so.

A.H. Belo

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How Long Can Belo Hold On?

In a bit of irony, and a bit of what's wrong with local newspapers, you have to turn to Frontburner to find any discussion of the dire straits The Dallas Morning News finds itself in. Wick Allison does a bit of back-of-the-envelope calculating and concludes that A.H. Belo is a media company fast running out of cash. Not even its real estate holdings seem to be a defensible barrier against the economic collapse affecting mainstream media.

In big cities and even in some not-so-big cities, two or even more daily newspapers used to be common. Those days are gone for all but a few cities. The lone surviving daily in each metropolitan area has managed to hang on, but even media monopolies are no longer assured of survival. Which city will be the first to find itself without a newspaper? Newark? The publisher of the Star-Ledger threatened to shut it down if either a buyer wasn't found or enough employees didn't take buyout offers to drastically cut costs (and quality?). Similar stories abound across the country. Will Dallas find itself without a daily newspaper? It's no longer as unthinkable as it once was.

Ron Paul

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Recipe for a Good Society

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Points section, is having second thoughts about the horse he backed in the Presidential race. He was a Mike Huckabee supporter in the primaries, then was torn in the general election. He couldn't support John McCain because of his hawkish position on the Iraq War, but he couldn't support Barack Obama because of his support of women's rights regarding abortion. He couldn't bring himself not to vote at all, so he wrote in the name of farmer-poet Wendell Berry (don't ask).

Belatedly, Rod Dreher now regrets that America didn't listen to Ron Paul, although he recognizes he was "eccentric" and an "old crank." Dreher says Paul was right in criticizing America's foreign policy for meddling in the Middle East and was right in his libertarian economic views. Dreher didn't vote for him, but now nominates him for Texan of the Year and the hope for reform and restoration of sanity to the Republican Party and ultimately, the US government.

Well. There's a reason why "old cranks" don't get elected. It's because they are usually extremists and extremists don't govern well, whether from the right, from the left, or from Libertarian outer space. NPR's Marketplace recently interviewed economist and health-care expert Victor Fuchs, who explained what Americans look for in a health care system, and, I would argue, in government in general:

"I want efficiency, and I want justice. I want freedom, and I want security. Now as an economist I know that there have to be trade-offs. I can't have all the freedom and all the security that I would like to have. And that's where the judgment and the political balance comes in. We may have to give up a little bit of efficiency in order to get more justice. On the other hand, I would hold up a stop sign to those people who say, "Well, the only thing I'm interested in is security and justice. And I don't give a hang about freedom and efficiency." That's not right, either. What we have to some extent is, I would't say a polarization, but we have a lot of people who take extreme positions one way or the other. And that's not a recipe for a good society."

Ron Paul's libertarianism is good at delivering freedom, but not security. With libertarianism, efficiency and justice are fortuitous outcomes when you get them, and the free market's responsibility when you don't. "Not my problem," is the libertarian's attitude. "No, thanks" is the electorate's reaction to the libertarian campaign pitch. Given that a criterion for being named Texan of the Year is having an uncommon impact don't expect Ron Paul to be honored. Old cranks get attention. Old cranks entertain. But old cranks don't have the recipe for a good society. Ron Paul is no exception.

Presidential pardons; The Beatles

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Time To Rein In Pardon Power

Nicole Stockdale, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, supports Margaret Colgate Love's argument that Presidential pardon power is a good thing, that it is a fundamental part of the Constitution's checks and balances and ensures that our legal system is applied in a just and moral manner. (Love is a former US pardon attorney.)

I'm with Love in general, but I think the Founders gave a little too much power to the President in this case. Yes, a Presidential pardon can be used to check excesses of the Judicial branch, but there's nothing to check Presidential abuse of the pardon. An eleventh hour pardon of political cronies just before a President leaves office puts criminals beyond the reach of justice without possibility of any consequences to the President, as he is soon out of office himself.

This isn't theoretical, as Bush has already used his power to commute sentences to benefit his Vice President's Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby *all* spoke to reporters about Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent before Robert Novak outed her by printing it in a newspaper. Libby the lied about his role (and Dick Cheney's) and was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice. Bush then commuted Libby's sentence and may yet pardon him before he leaves office.

A President using the power of the pardon to benefit his crooked cronies is unjust. A Constitutional check and balance is called for. Just like a Presidential veto can be overturned, a Presidential pardon ought to be reviewable as well. If George W Bush abuses his pardon power, perhaps it will be time for a Constitutional amendment allowing a two-thirds vote of the Congress to override and cancel a pardon.

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What The Pope Is Listening To

Sam Hodges, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, tells us that the Vatican newspaper has praise for The Beatles' music. With the Vatican's belated imprimatur, I guess it's now official. The Beatles really were more popular than Jesus.

Economic crisis

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How Big the Coming Economic Tsunami?

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, is sounding the alarm that the sky is falling. What with the financial bailout, our already staggering deficit, and the future liabilities built into Social Security and Medicare, Dreher feels like somebody watching the oceans draw away just before the tsunami hits.

People need to keep things in perspective. When economists warn us that we're facing the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression, that means that it's not as bad as the Great Depression. It's still plenty bad, but not as bad as Dreher fears. We have a lot going for us today that we didn't back then. We have FDIC, unemployment insurance, and government officials who have learned a thing or two from the experience of the Great Depression. We're not likely to see the depths we saw in the 1930s (soup lines and shantytowns) nor the duration (a decade-long slump that WWII finally brought us out of).

Whether our politicians have the will to administer the bitter medicine needed to pull us through these bad times is the critical question. I admit that history, certainly the last eight years, does not give us much cause for hope. For two years, Barack Obama has promised us change we need, change we can believe in. Now, it's time for him to deliver.

Elsewhere in the blog, William McKenzie expresses his misgivings over "giantism," the notion that some enterprises are "too big to fail." And we grow governments too big to afford, populations too big to educate, health care systems too big to manage, etc.

The problem is not that our institutions have gotten too big, it's that they have gotten out of control. In the 19th Century, businesses were allowed to grow unregulated and the boom and bust business cycles were as ferocious as anything we're seeing today. The Great Depression was the mother of all busts. FDR's New Deal tamed business's excesses and created a business environment that resulted in four decades of stable prosperity and growth as strong as any in our nation's history. Starting in the 1980s, there was a pendulum swing back towards laissez-faire capitalism, starting with Ronald Reagan's declaration that government isn't the solution to the problem, government is the problem and ending with today's collapse of the housing market, the financial industry, and the automobile industry. It's time for the pendulum to swing back towards rational regulation. The business cycle will never be tamed, but at least its worst excesses can be managed, given the political will to do so. Again, it's time for Barack Obama to deliver.

Low income housing; Obama and guns; DISD term limits

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Let Them Eat Cake

Trey Garrison has an uncanny knack for answering his own question without knowing it.

"What, exactly, is wrong with locating all the housing for low income people in one general area? ... Look, it’s not a politically correct fact, but the reality is low income neighborhoods have higher crime rates."

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

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Thorough Vetting by Team Obama

Trey Garrison reveals his bitterness over the recent election by referring to President-elect Barack Obama as "Dear Leader." He also reveals the tinfoil hat he wears that allows him to see into other people's souls.

One of the 64 questions the Obama transition teams asks potential appointees is this:

"Do you or any members of your immediate family own a gun? If so, provide complete ownership and registration information. Has the registration ever lapsed? Please also describe how and by whom it is used and whether it has been the cause of any personal injuries or property damage."

Garrison sees it as a "litmus test," implying, without providing any evidence, that gun owners will be denied appointment. More likely, the transition team wants to ensure that appointees are responsible, law-abiding citizens. Conservatives used to consider that a good thing.

You don't think Republicans might try to embarrass Obama if one of his picks turns out to have an unregistered gun in his house? Remember, one of Bill Clinton's cabinet picks had to step down because she didn't pay social security taxes for her family nanny. A Supreme Court nominee had to step down because he had smoked marijuana as a young man. Given the gun nuts' knee-jerk antipathy towards Obama (witness Trey Garrison's reaction to this story), there's no doubt how they would respond to an embarrassing gun story coming out about an Obama nominee.

If John McCain had spent more than about five minutes vetting his own Vice Presidential nominee, we might be watching a President-elect McCain choose a cabinet now. Team Obama is refreshingly competent and on top of their game with this thorough and rigorous vetting process. Conservatives like Trey Garrison, on the other hand, are grasping. Maybe that tinfoil hat that Trey is wearing is on too tight.

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Shut Up He Explained

Matt Pulle, in Unfair Park, reports on the astonishing power grab by the DISD school board last night, when they voted to suspend next year's board elections and extend their own terms from three years to four. Matt Pulle admires their timing: "In the middle of the darkest, deepest financial crisis in the history of the district, the board members who fiddled around while Rome burned want to remain Caesar."

Little debate preceded the vote. No justification for the suspension of democracy was given, other than perhaps the DISD attorneys' claim that the move was legal, as if legality is justification enough. DISD school board president Jack Lowe didn't utter a single word in defense of the measure. Needless to say, the public was not pleased. Blacks were yelling at Hispanics. Hispanics were yelling at each other. Everybody was yelling at the board members. Channeling the great writer Ring Lardner, Pulle ends his account by quoting one Hispanic activist yelling at another, "Shut up, Carlos."

Sarah Palin; eHarmony; California Prop. 8

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Open Mic Night for Republicans

Steve Blow, metro columnist for The Dallas Morning News, is usually congenial, but he has the capacity to occasionally surprise. Today, he tells us of a scheduled "Open Mic Night" at the Dallas County Republican Party headquarters. Blow starts things off with his suggestion: "Ditch the ditz from Alaska."

Sexist? Sure. Unfair? Maybe. Wrong? Hardly.

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eHarmony Agrees to Service Gays

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, stirs up a hornet's nest by reporting on an out-of-court settlement by eHarmony Inc. to provide support for a same-sex dating service. Weiss isn't sure eHarmony should be forced to do this, given that there are plenty of gay dating services available on the Internet. He does concede that, much like the days of racially segregated lunch counters, "separate but equal isn't."

Since this was a settlement and not a court decision, it offers little guidance as to what the law requires. But we can assume eHarmony thought the law was against them. I'm assuming we're talking New Jersey law, not Texas law or US law, as the settlement involved the New Jersey Attorney General.

If New Jersey law forbids businesses from discrimination on account of sexual orientation and eHarmony cannot show that complying with the law imposes an undue burden, then eHarmony ought to be obliged to accept gays as customers, the same as legal requirements not to discriminate on the basis of sex, religion, or ethnicity. In other words, the debate ought be about whether sexual orientation ought to be a protected class. As long as it is, at least in New Jersey, eHarmony ought to comply with the law.

P.S. Yes, the double entendre in the headline was deliberate.

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Now, the Court's Turn to Decide Prop. 8

Another head scratcher lawsuit comes out of California, where opponents of Proposition 8, which overturned gay marriage rights in the state, have filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the ballot initiative. Readers of The Dallas Morning News Religion blog ask how a constitutional amendment can possibly be declared unconstitional.

Well, IANAL, but here goes. The California constitution talks about revising the constitution and about amending it, with (maybe) different ways to accomplish each. The ballot initiative is to be used for amending the constitution, not revising it (maybe). The plaintiffs argue that Prop. 8 amounts to a revision of the constitution, not an amendment, so was done through the wrong procedure. The court is being asked to interpret the constitution's (perhaps) ambiguous instructions for how to ... well, change it (amend? revise?). We'll see how it goes, but I think the odds are strongly against the plaintiffs.

Macro-evolution

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Observing Species Jumps

Bruce Tomaso, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, brings us a "dog bites man" kind of story, headlined, "Scientists think science should be taught in science class."

As obvious as you might think that opinion is, nevertheless the reader comments inevitably brought forth complaints that evolution is preposterous. One skeptic demanded examples of "macro-evolution," "where a lizard changed to a dog (or whatever). ... Changes within a species are not sufficient to prove that jumps EVER happened."

Scientists agree with creationists on one thing: species "jumps" never happen. The offspring of a lizard always a lizard. If it were a new species, say a fubar, who would the new fubar mate with, being the only one of its kind.

Nevertheless we can "observe" species jumps over time. The fossil record shows slow changes in a species over time, so much so that there's no doubt that the individual at the beginning of the chain is a different species than the individual at the end, even though each step along the way was the offspring of the previous generation.

We can also observe species jumps over distance. A species spread along, say, a coastline sometimes exhibits a remarkable trait. Individuals living in close proximity have no trouble mating, but individuals at one end of the range cannot mate with an individual at the other end. If a natural disaster, say an earthquake or volcano, separates the range permanently, scientists would identify the individuals at each end as being of different species.

But don't expect these cases to keep the creationists from continuing to repeat the falsehood that "macro evolution" has never been observed.

Christian/gay clashes

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Backlash to Prop 8

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, links to a YouTube video of a clash between Christians and gays in California. He headlines his blog item, "Gay mob assaults peaceful Christians."

The video doesn't show what I assume was a Christian protest against gays. It does show the gay counter-protest, which should be condemned for its verbal intimidation. From Rod Dreher's account of it, I expected to see physical violence, but saw none in this video.

Reader "Bill Marvel" laments that "there are unmistakable signs that the bond of mutual tolerance necessary to hold a democracy together is unraveling."

I don't see it that way. I liken it to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. African-Americans had been suppressed for centuries. Clashes were limited not out of mutual tolerance but through the tyranny of the majority. Finally, blacks announced that they weren't going to take it any more. Great good can come when patience finally runs out and a people demands justice. Within the lifetimes of those civil rights pioneers, our nation elected an African-American as president.

I know there are flaws in comparing the African-American experience with the gay experience in America. But in this one way, at least, they are similar. Gays' patience is running out and they are indicating that they are not going to take it anymore. In the 1960s anger boiled over into race riots. Gays don't have the numbers to trigger the same level of violence today, but I am not surprised to see a video showing gays verbally intimidating Christians who come into their neighborhood and threaten gays with eternal hellfire just for being who their are.

Dreher sees it just the opposite. In his morality play, he likens the anti-gay Christians to the non-violent followers of Martin Luther King. And the provoked gays to the Alabama police who used fire hoses and police dogs against the protest marchers. He wants to see this simply as a case of intolerance of the free speech rights of the Christians. He ignores the real issue: the denial of civil rights to gays, just as the real issue 40 years ago wasn't the right of peaceful assembly by blacks, but the denial of a whole host of civil rights to African-Americans. When two sides can't even agree on what the issue is, don't expect them to agree on a solution anytime soon.

Humanists; D Magazine layoffs

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Be Good for Goodness' Sake

Jeffrey Weiss, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, notes that the American Humanist Association is launching a holiday advertising campaign to raise awareness of humanism.

Blog readers unsurprisingly took offense. "Spanky" said, "I wish these humanists would stop trying to force their beliefs on us." Another reactionary Christian living in some alternative reality America, "G. Headrick," said, "Is it not ironic that these ads are allowed when an ad such as 'Why Not Believe in God?' would be considered so politically incorrect that it would not get posted?"

Wow. What feverish imaginations at work. The Humanists are simply doing what countless churches do at this time of year with their ads saying come celebrate the season with us. Judging by some of the comments here, you'd think the humanists were pillaging churches and stealing and brainwashing Christian babies. Where's the love, people? Where's the yuletide spirit?

The Christian proselytizers like "Jacquetta Alexander" were quick to proclaim, "God is good. God is love. There is no good without God." Another, "Scott," said, "Where [do] morality, values, and "empathy, fairness, and experience" come from in humans. They have an origin. They don't just happen. The origin is God." Reader "Tom" argues, "The God deniers have a problem and it is evident here as it always is: when one denies the existence of God he has no motivation for being 'good' because there is ultimately no one to answer to." In contrast, he asks, "Why do you think that almost all of the charitable works over the past 2 millenia have been done by religious people, particularly Christians?" Tom points to Mother Theresa as an example of a Christian woman who took care of the poor out of love and devotion to God.

Social cooperation has been a hugely successful evolutionary adaptation for humans. Doing good is hardwired into us. In a sense, the Christians who preach that we are saved by grace, not by good works, are right, even if they don't understand why. We do good, not by choice, but because of millions of years of evolutionary tinkering with the species.

In America, Christianity is the dominant religion and atheists are shunned. That alone is enough to explain why most charitable work is associated with the religious.

Mother Theresa is maybe not so good an example of Christian charity as you might think. She famously despaired of the difference between her public face and her private thoughts. She prayed and felt emptiness in return. The silence was so deafening she doubted the existence of God, but was afraid to give voice to her fears. She wrote to her confessor: "Where is my Faith... there is nothing but emptiness and darkness. I have no Faith." And yet she labored on. As do others of no faith, some of whom consider themselves humanists.

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When You Make The News, Go Dark

The Frontburner blog of D Magazine was down this weekend and most of today, replaced by a simple "Hello, World" page. Now we know why. Tim Rogers tells us that D Magazine was in the process of letting go 19% of its staff. As Tim Rogers explains, "Our comments section began to spread news that some even in our company didn’t know yet. In deference to our co-workers and friends, we shut down all our blogs."

I won't criticize management for sparing employees the shock of reading of layoffs in the press instead of hearing it from management directly. But, just as when The Dallas Morning News suffered its own layoffs, I find it ironic that news media cover the news in their own newsroom most poorly. If the future of news is local and news media cannot be counted on to cover the most local news of all, news made in their own newsrooms, then the future of news media is troubled indeed.

Nevertheless, I do sincerely pass on my condolences to everyone looking for other employment today and even those who were spared... this time. The news business is going through tough times.

Blackwater

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Bush's Private Mercenary Force

Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, passes on a report that Blackwater smuggled hundreds fo weapons into Iraq, many of which found their way to the black market. Robberson, reasonably, headlines his blog item, "Why is our money still going to Blackwater?"

The answer lies in a more basic question. Why are George W Bush and Dick Cheney still on the public payroll?

The answer to that is multi-layered. The most obvious answer is that the votes aren't there to remove these two by impeachment and conviction in the Senate.

Why the votes aren't there is because party politics has completely replaced the checks and balances set up in the Constitution by dividing government between the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. Without political parties, Congress by now would have impeached and removed Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors against the Constitution. The indictment would have many counts. Take your pick on which ones to convict him on. But with political parties, the Republicans in Congress see their primary role not as members of a Congress acting as a check on the President, but as supporters of a fellow Republican against the Democrats in Congress. Congress is divided by political party and impotent to act as a check and balance against a runaway Executive. It's a flaw in the Constitution unforeseen by our Founding Fathers. Luckily for us, it has not (yet) been a fatal flaw.

Bailout; Cesar Chavez Blvd; Gay boycott

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Paulson Changes Course

Keven Ann Willey, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, notes that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is saying that the $700 billion financial bailout program will not be used to buy troubled mortgage-backed assets, but will be used to invest directly in banks. Willey says she'd like to see a discussion of this change in course among those who understand it.

That would make for a pretty small conversation. Lest anyone think that comment was tongue-in-cheek, I refer you to the testimony of the one person I would have predicted would have an explanation for what's happening, Alan Greenspan:

"Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholders’ equity, myself included, are in a state of shocked disbelief."

Reader Eric Brandler suspects the taxpayer was conned and that there's "no theoretical upside, only downside for the taxpayers" in this new direction. It might not be as bad as that. The money the government is investing in the banks is being exchanged for preferred stock, so if the banks prosper, the taxpayer might still get his money back. That's what we're being told anyway. The reality is anyone's guess.

Congress created the position of special inspector general to oversee the bailout program, but the Bush administration has yet to nominate anyone to fill that newly created position. The most worrisome news about the bailout is the quote by the Treasury Department's Inspector General: "It's a mess."

One good consequence of the long wait between the election and the inauguration is that for a few months at least we truly have bi-partisan self-interest in doing something about the problem. We only have one President at a time and, for better or worse, right now that's George W Bush, whose legacy would be even more tarnished with further economic collapse on his watch. Barack Obama is keenly interested in avoiding that, too, to prevent his watch from having quite so deep a hole to dig out of. That all changes on January 20, 2009. Then, the Democrats will be in complete charge of the government and the Republicans go into full stonewall mode, hoping to blame as much of the continuing economic disaster on Democrats as they can. You can get a sneak preview of that from some of the reader comments. "Michael R McCullough" gives a conspiracy nut's view of the landscape -- there's no problem now, but just wait until Obama takes over.

"Unless Obama and congress institute their socialist principles, there is no cause to worry. ... This is a manufactured crisis and nothing more."

"mr.ed" absolves Bush of all blame and explains just what the Democrats are scheming to impose on America:

"Chris Dodd (D), the Senate Banking Committee Chairman IS SUPPOSED TO BE IN CHARGE, not the President...that the Democrat-controlled House and Senate are SUPPOSED TO BE IN CHARGE, but continue to be in absentia. The handouts are a Democrat administration concept...it's called speading the wealth...it's called SOCIALISM!"

If this is all the help Republicans can offer when their own man is still President, maybe impatience for January 20, 2009 is the right attitude after all. Lead, follow, or get out the way. It's time for the Republicans to just get out of the way.

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Street Renaming a Skirmish in Bigger War

Tod Robberson, in The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog, gives us a backstory to the news that the Dallas City Council rejected a proposal to rename Ross Avenue after Cesar Chavez. Robberson says that renaming advocate Alberto Ruiz, when he met with The Dallas Morning News editorial board several weeks ago, "could not have been more insulting and abrasive." Robberson says that being successful in politics is about being persuasive and Ruiz lacks the diplomacy to succeed.

I don't know Alberto Ruiz, but my guess is that he wasn't interested in persuading the DMN editorial board as much as he was in doing some good old fashioned consciousness-raising in the Hispanic community. For that, a little controversy goes a longer way than would a quick, polite agreement to put new street signs up in some neighborhood. My guess is that Alberto Ruiz has much bigger goals in mind than just a street renaming and he is more than willing to lose this skirmish in order to rally his side for the more consequential battles to come. And that's a lesson Tod Robberson either never learned or is overlooking as a possibility in this situation.

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Consequences for California Prop. 8

Rod Dreher is at it again, publishing his soft bigotry in the The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog. This time the target of his complaints isn't Hispanics, isn't African-Americans, it's gays. He reports that a financial supporter of California's Proposition 8, denying gays the right to marry, resigned from his job as a local theater director when customers began to boycott his theater in protest.

Dreher says he's being persecuted for his support of traditional marriage, that angry gays are driving the man out of his job, that this is a return to the "blacklist" and "we don't want to go there again in this country."

Oh, please. Quit claiming he was defending traditional marriage. He was funding an effort to deny the benefits of traditional marriage to gays, a right that was already established. He was taking away rights from others, not defending anything. Reader "leslie" put it best: "He lost his job, but not the RIGHT to have one. I lost the RIGHT to marry."

If customers don't much care to see their ticket money get used to pay someone who funds anti-marriage activities, it shouldn't surprise anyone.

By the way, when the House Un-American Activities Committee starts hauling theatre producers in front of them to demand to know if they employ any anti-gay Mormons, then Dreher will have a historical analogy worth scare-mongering about.

Guilty but insane

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What To Do With The Criminally Insane

Everybody is commenting on the release of Dena Schlosser, the mentally ill mother who killed her baby in gruesome fashion. Jacquielynn Floyd, in a column in The Dallas Morning News, wants courts to have more options than verdicts of "guilty" or "not guilty by reason of insanity." She argues for "guilty, but insane", a verdict that, she believes, would allow a court more options after the insanity is medically treated. I'm willing to go along with that, if courts really are hamstrung by the "not guilty by reason of insanity" verdict. I'd like to learn more about that. Floyd doesn't offer any details there.

Mark Davis, in an op-ed column in The Dallas Morning News, offers his own opinion in his column in The Dallas Morning News. I usually don't read Davis, as his column headlines usually tell me everything there is to know about his opinion. I suspect today's column is no exception: "Insane killers need to be locked up for life."

But my favorite comment comes from the usually easy-going, folksy, Steve Blow, who responds to Mark Davis in a blog post to The Dallas Morning News Metro blog:

"Let's take a hypothetical. Let's suppose Dena Schlosser was driving down the road, had a seizure, crashed her car and killed the baby riding with her. Would we lock her up for life for that? Of course not. Dena Schlosser doesn't have seizures. She has a brain illness of a different sort -- one that alters her thinking so radically that killing her baby seemed like obeying God. Should we lock her up for life for that? Of course not. We don't lock people up for being sick. We might forbid someone with seizures from driving. We might prevent someone with hallucinations from being alone with children. But we don't punish illness."

The money quote comes in the title to Steve Blow's blog post: "Lock Mark Davis up for life."

Gay rights; Sex and iPods

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Religious Liberty Does Not Preclude Gay Rights

Rod Dreher, in The Dallas Morning News Religion blog, sees an irreconcilable clash between civil rights for homosexuals and religious liberty of traditionalist churches. Dreher doesn't offer any examples of such conflicts. None of the matters currently in the press (e.g., California's Proposition 8 reserving "marriage" for one man, one woman), seem to impose any burdens on traditionalist churches. I see three areas that Dreher might have in mind.

First is whether the government should discriminate against gays with respect to marriage. For me, the answer is clearly, no. Regardless, churches aren't directly impacted by this. It doesn't change what happens inside the church doors at all.

Second is whether private businesses and institutions should be allowed to discriminate against gays. Again, to me, the answer is clearly, no. A restaurant should not be allowed to turn customers away because they are gay. An employer should not be allowed to deny employment to an applicant because he or she is gay. Again, churches aren't directly impacted by this. It doesn't change what happens inside the church doors at all.

Third is whether churches should be allowed to discriminate against gays. In this case, I say Constitutional freedom of religion says they should have this right. If they want to deny the priesthood to gays, deny the sacrament of marriage to gays, or even deny membership to gays, they should have that right.

The only gray area is when churches run secular institutions, like charities, that serve the public at large. The courts are already involved in cases disputing whether a church-run charity can discriminate on the basis of religious belief. If there isn't already a case involving discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, I'm sure there will be, sooner rather than later, whether or not gay marriage is legally recognized or not. So far, the courts seem to draw the line at whether the function served is primarily religious or primarily secular. That seems about right to me.

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Sex Really Is Like An iPod

Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas preached a sermon last Sunday titled "Why Gay is not O.K." Advertising the sermon on the church's outdoor sign attracted about a hundred demonstrators to Sunday services, who protested the church's bigotry from a public spot across the street.

Jeffress compared having sexual relations to using an iPod, whose instruction manual says that you must plug the iPod into a 120 power source to charge it. Jeffress says we all understand that Steve Jobs issues these instructions for our benefit, not his. Jeffress then says God's instruction manual for sex orders people to engage in it only in a marriage between one man and one woman. Again, this is for our benefit, not His.

Unfair Park reader "John M" had the best critique of Jeffress's flawed analogy:

"Huh, last I checked iPods come with USB cables and you have to buy the wall adaptor separately. Apple will happily sell you a 220 power adaptor, I don't know if the new ones both 120 and 220 but the older larger ones that they still sell are 120 and 220 compatible and they even sell a set of plugs that attach to the adaptor for use around the world. I've charged my iPod using the same adaptor I use at home in at least a dozen countries. They also endorse car chargers, battery packs and hundreds of other devices, cords, docks, and plugs for the dock port that you charge your iPod with that aren't outlined in the instruction manual but are perfectly fine and safe to use.

It seems that Robert Jeffress's understanding of the iPod is right on the level of his understanding of the bible."

Robert Jeffress demonstrates once again why people should steer clear of analogies. They are hardly ever a perfect fit and too often, when examined closely, they better support the exact opposite point the speaker is trying to make. Worse in this case, an attempt to sound current, when it backfires, instead emphasizes how out of touch with the modern world Jeffress really is. But that was already clear when we saw the sermon title on the church sign, wasn't it?

If Robert Jeffress wants to mine iPod again for his next sermon, many I suggest the following Apple slogans for inspiration?
Hold everything.
Everybody touch.
One size fits all.
Expand at will.

Raum Emanuel

The Nightly Build...

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Permanent Democratic Majority

It was reported that Tom Pauken, one-time chairman of the Texas Republican Party, left an Austin GOP gathering early on election night to watch the returns in the privacy of his own home. Perhaps he didn't want anyone to see him crying. More likely he did not want to waste any time before starting the planning for the GOP attack on the new Obama administration.

Pauken's attack comes today in a Dallas Blog column criticizing Barack Obama's choice for Chief of Staff, Raum Emanuel. Pauken calls him "totally ruthless" and "with no ethical compass" who makes "frequent use of the f--- word" (oh my!). Pauken is particularly distressed that, back in the Clinton impeachment days, Emanuel took satisfaction in the revelation that Rep. Henry Hyde (R-Il), then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was an adulterer himself. I'm not sure the logic Pauken uses to think that the fall of Henry Hyde the hypocrite is going to be viewed as a bad thing, even if Emanuel was behind it, but Pauken spends much of his column on just that decade-old subject.

Personally, I find Emanuel to be a savvy political operator, more pragmatic than ideologue, a brilliant choice by Obama to help get his agenda implemented. Pauken's comments are more of the old style politics of personal destruction rather than the politics of solving the problems the voters elected Barack Obama to tackle. The GOP is going to have to change their attitude if they want voters to give them another look in 2010 or 2012. Otherwise, that "permanent Democratic majority" that Pauken fears (that strikes me as Pauken's real objection to the Emanuel pick) is a real possibility.

Advice for GOP

The Nightly Build...

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Not Conservative Enough?

Everyone has explanations for the GOP losses Tuesday and where the GOP should go from here. The Dallas Morning News, which endorsed John McCain and practically every other Texas Republican on the ballot, is free with its own advice, too. The DMN says the GOP shouldn't blame "the liberal media" or duped youths or identity politics for their losses. The DMN says the fault lies within the GOP itself: they weren't conservative enough.

This is yet another dusting off of an old Republican excuse, what political analyst Rick Perlstein first recognized as the attitude that "conservatism never fails; it is only failed."

Modern conservatism is founded on the principles of low taxes and limited government. George W Bush and the Republican Congress delivered on the first, by cutting taxes in good times and bad. The tax cuts benefited primarily the wealthy, but the GOP told us that's only because the wealthy pay most of the taxes.

What the "real" conservatives complain about is the GOP failure to deliver on the second half of their foundation, limited government. There is a hard-nosed, practical reason the GOP didn't do this. It would mean cutting social programs like Social Security and Medicare and education, all the government programs that benefit primarily the middle class and the poor. So, the GOP agreed to a grand social compact with the electorate. The rich would get their tax cuts and the poor and middle class would keep their social programs. The result was a deepening hole of debt.

It worked... for a few election cycles. But the economy can defy gravity only so long. Eventually the GOP-built house of cards collapsed. The country now faces a hard choice: either reform the tax code so we again start paying for the social programs that a huge majority of the electorate clearly favors, or let the rich keep their tax cuts and give up the no-longer affordable safety net that Americans like. For the DMN to think that the latter is the way for the GOP to win back the hearts of the voters is pure folly. But it is in keeping with the old notion that "conservatism never fails; it is only failed."

Right-wing Pundits; Right-wing SBOE

The Nightly Build...

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Mark Davis Is Still Here

I don't know why I had the feeling. Maybe it's the inevitable letdown after the emotional high of an historic election. But when I opened the morning newspaper (figuratively that is, my subscription to The Dallas Morning News is long expired) and found Mark Davis sounding just like the Mark Davis of old, I involuntarily let out a long sigh. Despite Paul Krugman's wishful thinking...

"Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness."

... the monsters aren't banished at all. They may not be in power anymore, but they are still around, their rants as tired as ever.

Davis says Obama "poses palpable dangers -- to our national security, our economy and our Constitution" as if the hole our country is in is not due to the disastrous Bush administration, but will only begin as Obama starts digging us out of the debacle in Iraq, the economic meltdown, and Bush's suspension of the Constitution through warrantless wiretapping, denial of habeus corpus, and torture.

Today's column is the same old Mark Davis, talking of hasty surrender in Iraq, handing al Qaeda a victory, eternally dishonoring the troops, giving in to the "Islamist-coddling pacifist wing of his party," and Obama's "radical past and socialist instincts." Today's column reveals a defeated conservative in deep denial:

"This election was a slap at the Republican brand of the moment, not the fundamentals of conservatism."

The sun the morning after the election rises on a Mark Davis who is unbroken and unbowed, a Mark Davis who has learned nothing and who still has nothing to say.

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Texas SBOE Is Still Here, Too

Mark Davis may be in the lunatic fringe, but at least he doesn't hold any position of authority. Readers who don't care for his opinion are welcome to line their bird cages with his writings. Cynthia Dunbar, on the other hand, is a member of the lunatic fringe with real power. She's a member of the Texas State Board of Education, the organization that sets the school curriculum used to educate our children.

Linda Campbell, in a Fort Worth Star-Telegram column, tells us that Dunbar spread false and malicious information before this week's presidential election. Dunbar claims that Barack Obama "obstinately refused to present valid documentation" of citizenship, thus violating the Constitution by claiming to be eligible to hold the office of President. This is a scurrilous myth that's been spread by email since the summer. It's been debunked by numerous independent sources, but Cynthia Dunbar continues to present the smear as fact. She hysterically cries that "an Obama Administration would ultimately mean one thing . . . the end of America as we know her."

The State Board of Education ought to be non-partisan and focused solely on the education of our children. Texans should not entrust that education to a woman who spreads lies and fear to influence political elections. Cynthia Dunbar needs to find another job. Voters should insist on it in the 2010 election.

Election Commentary

The Nightly Build...

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Awards for Election Commentary

The "I Saw It Coming" Award goes to Byron York, National Review Online:

"In January, a few days before the South Carolina Democratic primary, I went to a Barack Obama rally in Columbia with a Republican friend who had never before seen Obama in action. This friend’s reaction: 'Oh, s**t.' The super-enthusiastic crowd was about 3,000 strong -- no big deal compared to the audiences Obama would later draw in the general election, but several times what John McCain was attracting in South Carolina at the time. My friend said the scene reminded him of the old clip from Jaws, in which the small-town sheriff, seeing how big the shark really is, says, 'We’re gonna need a bigger boat.' The question, of course, was whether Republicans actually had a bigger boat. Now we can say for sure that they didn’t."

The "Best Campaign Sign" Award goes to an anonymous Mississippi partisan:

"Rednecks for Obama: Even We've Had Enough"

The "Gracious Concession Speech" Award goes to Rod Dreher (just beating out John McCain):

"I am a Republican, and I've had it with my side, who got the thumping we deserve. And all credit to the president-elect for magnanimously reaching out to us bruised and battered conservatives in his victory address, quoting Abraham Lincoln's hauntingly beautiful line, 'We are not enemies, but friends.' Yep, he's my president too. And I'm fine with that."

The "State of Denial" Award goes to Dallas Republicans, as reported by The Dallas Morning News Trailblazers blog's Mark Norris:

"There was about 10 people with me around a TV tuned to the Obama speech. By the end, they had all walked off. Most sighed as they walked away or shook their heads. As the speech ended, there was some yelling from the other side of the room. The one word I was able to discern - 'recount.'"

The "I Lost; You Won; Now Do What I Say" Award goes to The Dallas Morning News editorial board:

"The job now for Mr. Obama is to make good on his promise to govern from the political center, paying particular attention to getting spending under control. The president-elect should strongly consider appointing Republicans to his Cabinet and ensure that conservative voices get a fair hearing in policy decisions."

The "Hoping for Failure" Award goes to Trey Garrison:

"The fun of the Pelosi/Reid/Obama axis train wreck is just beginning and open Keynesianism will be on display in its full, ugly, failing glory."

The "Tell Us What You Really Think" Award goes to the NYT's Paul Krugman:

"For the past 14 years America’s political life has been largely dominated by, well, monsters. Monsters like Tom DeLay, who suggested that the shootings at Columbine happened because schools teach students the theory of evolution. Monsters like Karl Rove, who declared that liberals wanted to offer 'therapy and understanding' to terrorists. Monsters like Dick Cheney, who saw 9/11 as an opportunity to start torturing people. ... Four years ago it seemed as if the monsters would dominate American politics for a long time to come. But for now, at least, they’ve been banished to the wilderness."

The "First Look At 2012" Award goes to reader Ryan Short on The Dallas Morning News Opinion blog:

"A poignant moment for me last night was during McCain's concession speech. I celebrated at the Bishop Arts party, and it seemed there were almost no boos during his very gracious speech... until he mentioned Sarah Palin's name. Then the crowd went nuts. After McCain finished mentioning her, the crowd calmed. I won't say I'm surprised necessarily at the sharp reaction, or that I agreed/disagreed, but the heavy shift in tone from the crowd did pull me back a minute. It's a good sign that the Republicans should seriously think twice before running Palin in 2012."

Finally, the poignant "Barriers Still to Overcome" Award goes to reader "othniel" of the Burnt Orange Report:

"I worked for Obama, for hope. I believed. I donated. I dared to have vision. I celebrated his victory with my sons who cast their first voted for him. I thought I belonged. But those of us who are LGBT have once again simply been sacrificed to the gods of political expediency. Sit down you are rocking the boat, we used to be told. Now we are just thrown overboard. We are tired of being thrown in to your closet after working so hard to get out of ours. It was easier not to hope, and it hurt far less. Sorry to rain on the party, but I am tired of being uninvited, though expected to help pay for it. Never ever ask me for a campaign contribution again, or expect me to be happy with some miscegnated concept of an un'civil' union. Never has any group of Americans been slapped by its friends as horribly as what happened to LGBT Americans last night when the rocket of hope for which we worked alongside our brethren and sisters took off before we were asked aboard. I guess the parade has passed us by after all. Some American Dream this turned out to be. No stars for our ilk on that flag after all."

Halloween

The Nightly Build...

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Rod Dreher Rants About Trick-or-Treaters

Tying up some loose ends while waiting for election returns...
Rod Dreher posted a racist rant this morning complaining about Latinos driving their kids around for trick-or-treating, what Dreher calls "trawling in some other neighborhood's waters." Dreher says "it's no skin off my nose" in a tone that clearly indicates that he thinks it is. So much so that he turned his porchlight out and "put a bench at the top of the steps to discourage trick or treaters". What makes this different from the standard old man "get off my lawn" type complaining is Rod Dreher's habit of always bringing race into the matter ("they're always Latino folks").

That Dreher assumes it's a racist thing is sad. Needless to say, many commenters pointed out, in more polite language than I would use, that this practice is not confined to "Latino folks," but is done by non-Hispanic whites and African-Americans, too. Some expressed displeasure at the practice, but others excused it on the assumption that some of the offenders are parents who live in less safe neighborhoods who want to give their kids a taste of safe trick-or-treating, too. Jim Schutze, who speaks with the wisdom that comes from experience, says:

"This is acually a recurring phenomenon in East Dallas -- the white new arrival who doesn't understand why so many Mexican kids come to his house at Halloween. We did a terrific story about this at the Times-Herald when it happened on Swiss Avenue in the 1980s. I am proud that a majority of Swiss Avenue Historic District residents stood up and told the newly arrived ethnophobes, 'They were here first, and, anyway, we love them and want more of them to come for Halloween.' Mr. Dreher is a type I know all too well."

Look ethnophobe up in the dictionary and I wouldn't be surprised if "crunchy con" didn't appear somewhere in one of the definitions. Rod Dreher, not knowing when to retreat, puts down Schutze as a "sanctimonious liberal who wears his 'tolerance' on his sleeve as a badge of honor."

I grew up thinking tolerance was a virtue. I thought everyone did. More recently, it's slowly dawned on me that tolerance is not valued by conservatives, especially by the religious right, who believe they are blessed with revealed Truth. Diversity of opinion (diversity, there's another word that conservatives despise) is bad because there can be one and only one Truth, and they know what it is.

Yet tolerance is at the heart of the American experience. It was religious intolerance that many of the early settlers were fleeing. Liberty demands tolerance. I've come to believe that this is what is behind conservative's antipathy to government, to an impartial press, to academia. These institutions enshrine tolerance and that is anathema to conservatives.

I've often been troubled by an inherent contradiction in liberalism's love of tolerance. One trait liberalism cannot tolerate is intolerance. Conservatives intuitively pick up on this contradiction and accuse liberals of hypocrisy, since liberals don't let conservatives practice intolerance. I have no good answer for that. It's a valid criticism.

Most recently, I've realized that conservatives offer a solution to this paradox, or at least libertarians do. Libertarians say that, as long as they have their guns, they don't care what others do, whether they practice tolerance or intolerance. As long as the libertarian can blast anyone who infringes on his space, he's willing to let society at large do what it wants. This isn't the kind of Wild West society I want to live in, but it does seem to be internally consistent. That's not a bad thing. As for me, I'm still wearing tolerance on my sleeve as a badge of honor.

Wick Allison's endorsement; Election predictions

The Nightly Build...

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Wick Allison for Obama: Now More Than Ever

In mid_September, Wick Allison, former publish of William F. Buckley's deeply conservative National Review and current editor-in-chief of D Magazine, surprised readers by endorsing Barack Obama for President. Recently, he was asked whether he has had any second thoughts. His questioner, Marty Cortland (yes, the pseudonymous commenter on the Dallas scene) said he's been disappointed in John McCain, but intends to vote for him anyway for "pocketbook reasons."

Wick Allison not only doesn't back down from his Obama endorsement, he is even more forceful in his argument why it is the right decision. His response, published on Frontburner, is so eloquent that I include more of it here than fair use might justify, but I can't find anything to cut.

"Two major events have occurred since I wrote my endorsement: (1) McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin, and (2) the financial collapse.

"On the financial crisis, Obama’s response and his proposed plan underscore my judgment of him as prudent and thoughtful. McCain’s response was that of a jet fighter pilot’s: a quick zig, an immediate zag, and, in this case, a final poof. Temperament is a huge issue in a president, and each candidate’s reactions to the crisis gave an ample demonstration of his. Judgment is not McCain’s strong point, and that is amply demonstrated in the first point, the selection of Palin to be a potential President of the United States. It was cynical -- and disasterous. And it was made in one hour. It will, and should, cost him the election.

"As to your pocketbook, Marty, how’s your portfolio? Eight years of fiscal mismanagement -- and skyrocketing borrowing to pay for it -- are chickens that will come home to roost. How any conservative, or any businessman, could abide that is beyond me. Like you, I fall into the top tier and will pay higher taxes under Obama. I am more than willing to pay them to restore our economy and to restore fiscal sanity to our government. Joe Biden was right. It is a matter of patriotism. We have lost all sense of how the real world operates if we think government can borrow to pay for wars, to pay for increased entitlements, and to pay for its normal operations. Unfortunately, now we’ll need higher deficits to pump the economy. It is a burden that will take years to pay down. Face it: the Democrats have been right, and we -- or those who claimed to represent the conservative philosophy -- have been wrong.

"Marty, gird up your loins. Do the right thing. Vote Obama. Pay the taxes. Help straighten up the mess we Republicans caused."

My respect for Wick Allison is enormous. Allison is an intellectually honest conservative who doesn't let political party trump principle. If the Republican Party has any hope of rising from the ashes of the coming electoral rout, it will be by listening to conservatives like Wick Allison, not by shifting further to the right and lining up behind a Palin 2012 campaign.

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Predictions for Election

Popular vote:
Obama: 53%
McCain: 46%
Other: 1%

Electoral vote:
Obama: 338
McCain: 200

House:
Democrats: 260
Republicans: 175

Senate:
Democrats: 59*
Republicans: 41**
* Counting Sanders (I-VT), Lieberman (I-CT)
** Counting Chambliss (R-GA) who might face a run-off

Goolsby's House lounge; Obama campaign plane

The Nightly Build...

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Goolsby: "I'm up to my ass in a damn campaign."

The AP reports that the Texas House is splurging on renovations to its members lounge, including $30,000 worth of antique wood furnishings, in a time when Gov. Rick Perry is ordering state agencies to cut the budgets. Who is responsible for this wasteful use of taxpayer dollars? Well, let's ask the people in charge. House Speaker Tom Craddick said he's not responsible. He throws Dallas representative Tony Goolsby under the bus, saying it's the chairman of the House Administration committee who is responsible for the expenditures. What does Tony Goolsby say?

"Goolsby said he hadn't kept up with [the project] because he's been too focused on his own political survival in a district where supporters of Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama -- and presumably his opponent Carol Kent -- are highly energized. 'I'm up to my ass in a damn campaign,' Goolsby said. 'This is the only job I've got and I'm trying to save it. Obama's got people coming from the rafters.'"

LOL. Burnt Orange Report thought so much of Goolsby's quote that they led with it and repeated it twice more in their short coverage of the AP story.

If this is the only job Goolsby's got, you'd think he'd be doing a better job at it than splurging on redecorating in the face of an economic recession the likes of which our country hasn't seen in a long time. Maybe it's time to give the job to Carol Kent. She'll do a better job of protecting taxpayer money and ensuring it's spent on projects that benefit taxpayers instead of 19-year House incumbents.

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No Plane Ride for DMN

The Drudge Report today reported that the Obama campaign plane is getting crowded and three newspapers are getting the boot in the last two days before the election. One of the newspapers is The Dallas Morning News. One thing all three have in common: they all endorsed John McCain.

Rabid wingnuts were quick to let their opinion be known in the comment thread of DMN Trailblazers blog item explaining the background to the Drudge news.

"Karen" says, "Obama and his gestapo has made it clear that critics will be punished." And then she gets mean. "El Bueno" says, "You've been Brown Shirted. ... OBEY!" "tracey" says, "get ready AMERICA.....you get what you deserve if you vote in OBAMA...he will take away your hard earned money, right to free speech and guns just to start with. ... What is wrong with you people?????????????"

The truth is more prosaic. Demand for seats on the campaign plane goes up in the last days of a campaign. DMN is a regional newspaper not in a swing state. DMN has had the same trouble with the McCain campaign. Business is business. And winning an election is big business.

But there are two sidelines to this story that deserve more attention. First, the news was broken by the Drudge Report, not DMN. Why is that? Every newspaper in the country is in financial trouble. Most, including DMN, are retreating to a defensive position of focusing on local news. What's more local than what's happening to DMN reporters? How can they let Drudge scoop them? Another instance of this were the layoffs at DMN last week. What's more local than what's happening in DMN's own newsroom. Yet, hardly a word was said in the newspaper or in the paper's own blogs.

Second, in downplaying news of being booted from the Obama plane, DMN says it's had the same trouble with the McCain campaign. That's not an exoneration; that's an indictment. That indicates that DMN doesn't have the size and stature that it imagines it has. That downward spiral is only likely to continue as cutbacks in the newsroom leads to skimpier news coverage which leads to ever declining readership and revenues which leads to even more cutbacks. Will DMN even be around to request a seat on the Obama 2012 re-election campaign plane?